Reading The Perfect Golden Circle during a heatwave around the Solstice felt particularly appropriate, given its fictional recreation of the parched summer of 1989, when crop circles were appearing across the English countryside.
The novel's central characters Calvert and Redbone are not environmental vandals, like the reckless fly-tippers and lampers they encounter; on the contrary, author Benjamin Myers depicts them as craftsmen-artists, obsessed with the creation of enormous artworks that are "a radical and benevolent act". If, as Myers suggests, England's fields are "full of stories, century upon century of stories laid over one another", then Calvert and Redbone are writing their own.
Set against the backdrop of growing dissent after a decade of Thatcherism, The Perfect Golden Circle is many things, including political and historical commentary, a hymn to the natural world and a celebration of the consoling and healing power of friendship and art.
Buzz review here.
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